National Review Online
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Kermit Gosnell, the infamous late-term abortionist of
West Philadelphia, has died at age 85. Gosnell came to national attention in
2011 after a grand jury report detailed the “house of horrors” that was his
clinical abortion practice. Gosnell was convicted of first-degree murder in
2013, charged with seven born-alive infant deaths, and the involuntary
manslaughter of Karnamaya Mongar, a patient at his clinic. Gosnell’s life’s
work is a testimony to gruesome neglect in American law and society. This
neglect allowed Gosnell to profit at incredible cost to his community, to
unborn children, and to women in difficult pregnancies. Prosecutors speculated
that Gosnell caused perhaps hundreds of born-alive infant deaths.
His case illustrates several uncomfortable truths about
abortion. Abortion’s propagandists often talk of the dangers of childbirth, but
late-term surgical abortions are dangerous to women for an obvious reason.
Millions of years of evolution determine that a woman’s body protects the child
in the womb. Killing the unborn child with sharp implements and powerful
vacuums presents obvious risks to the mother. In Gosnell’s practice, one
woman’s cervix and colon were torn, requiring removal of nearly six inches of
her intestines. Another was sent home with fetal parts still inside of her,
leading to an infection that nearly killed her. Another went into shock and
required a hysterectomy.
This comes alongside another uncomfortable truth — the
kind of callousness required to carry out this work cannot be contained solely
to the unborn. Patients at Gosnell’s clinics were given powerful sedatives or
labor-inducing drugs by untrained staff. Women were left semiconscious on dirty
recliners or on operating tables. They were left on furniture the grand jury
report found was stained with blood, urine, and cat feces, which was also in
the operating room. Mongar died after being given outdated medication, which
led to staff giving her an overdose of it.
The Gosnell case exposed more than a clinic; it also
exposed Pennsylvania’s government, and ultimately American society. The
Pennsylvania Department of Health had three decades to detect and shut down
Gosnell’s “Women’s Medical Society.” For political reasons, it was decided that
inspections would, inherently, impede “access” to abortion. Gosnell never faced
scrutiny from the state, despite 46 civil lawsuits filed against him, including
ten for malpractice and one involving a patient death.
Well-documented complaints, administrative
irregularities, and regulatory violations were ignored by the government as
policy. Gosnell’s clinic operated without a formal certificate from 1980 to
1989. By that time, Gosnell was the only physician in the clinic; there were no
trained nurses, and no outside lab work was being done. The state renewed the
clinic’s approval based on promises to improve. A 1992 inspection left entire
sections blank — indicating no qualified person was administering anesthesia or
post-op care. The report concluded “no deficiencies” despite the fact that the
report itself documented deficiencies. Then, oversight ceased entirely. To
their credit, the National Abortion Federation inspected Gosnell’s clinic and
concluded it was so far below standard it could not be recommended as a referral
site. But this information wasn’t sent on to state regulators.
None of Pennsylvania’s 22 abortion clinics had been
inspected by the government for more than 17 years before the grand jury
investigation of Gosnell, a posture of neglect that began under pro-choice
Republican Governor Tom Ridge.
Gosnell was finally discovered because the DEA and FBI
were doing their job regarding the opioid crisis. Gosnell was running a pill
mill out of his abortion clinic, writing fraudulent subscriptions for
oxycodone, alprazolam, and codeine. This is perhaps the most obvious
uncomfortable testimony. Evil is not easily contained. Gosnell’s fundamental
mercenary hostility to life wasn’t limited to abortion but spread to the side
hustle of profiting from the deadly addictions of opioid users. By the time he
was brought to trial, Gosnell had managed to accumulate 17 properties.
Gosnell’s horrors are what American society offered the
scared, troubled pregnant women of West Philadelphia, turning a blind eye to
the insidious “service” he provided to his community. It brings to mind the
warning of Thomas Jefferson: We tremble when we reflect that God is just.
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